Sustainable traditions

In Green Living: Architecture and Planning, recently published by Rizzoli, 12 experts in green architecture and urbanism—including School of Architecture Professor David Mayernik and Professor emeritus Norman Crowe—argue that tradition and the vernacular have much to teach us about sustainability, and can serve as the base from which to evolve cities, towns, and buildings that meet our global environmental challenges.

The book argues that many answers to those challenges have been known for centuries. The book was co-edited by former School of Architecture Professor Barbara Kenda, and includes an introduction by The Prince of Wales who wrote, “Sustainability is not laboratory science; it is a principle manifest in the legacy of historic buildings all around us.…We have both a debt and a duty to conserving natural resources that go beyond the carbon challenge to address overpopulation, food, and farming and the allocation of resources between competing interests, both locally and internationally.”